Telescopic vision

HAVING your eyes tested may become quicker and easier thanks to technology borrowed from the newest astronomical telescopes.

Austin Roorda of the University of Houston in Texas has developed a system that uses adaptive optics, initially developed by astronomers to smooth out the twinkling caused by turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere, to produce a lens prescription almost instantly. But more importantly, it can also be used to study the retina in detail, allowing eye disease to be detected and monitored more precisely than with other methods.

The system uses laser beams and deformable mirrors to analyse the shape of the cornea and lens directly. This is far quicker than the normal method of testing vision, in which the optometrist places a succession of lenses in front of the patient’s eye to find the one that produces the sharpest image.

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